Twitter claims new scalp as Trafigura backs down

Stephen Fry and friends helped to destroy the injunction against the Guardian

Trafigura

The power of Twitter struck again today, as oil trader Trafigura dropped its injunction against the Guardian. With the help of the London legal firm Carter-Ruck, the company had successfully applied yesterday to the High Court for the gagging order which prevented the newspaper reporting Labour MP Paul Farrelly's written question to justice secretary Jack Straw (see above) concerning the company and its connections with the alleged dumping of toxic waste in Cote d'Ivoire.

After the Guardian posted an item online at 8.30pm yesterday, explaining that it was the subject of a ban – a ban which appeared to run roughshod over age-old rights to report parliamentary proceedings - users of Twitter started to make a mockery of the injunction in a way that the traditional media have always been unable to.

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Fry tweeted: "Outrageous gagging order. http://tr.im/BCA2 It's in reference to the Trafigura oil dumping scandal. http://tr.im/BCAm Grotesque and squalid", making himself a potentially high-profile target of any future legal action. Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger kept his followers updated on the moves to overturn the ban, while campaigners began to dig up and post links to all sorts of articles that the oil firm would surely have rather remained hidden.

There was a brief panic during the morning when it appeared that the company's name had disappeared from the topics list, with dark mutterings about the service having been got at by Carter-Ruck, but the flood of posts continued. Then at 12.45pm David Leigh, the Guardian's investigations editor, posted: "It appears that carter-ruck have suddenly decided to abandon the fight. no court after all". The Guardian, along with other newspapers, had been due to go court at 2pm to challenge the ban, but were now free to report Farrelly's question.

"Can it be true?" wrote Fry on hearing the news. "Carter-Ruck caves in! Hurrah! Trafigura will deny it had anything to do with Twitter, but we know don't we? We know! Yay!!!" Rusbridger echoed this sentiment, thanking Twitterers thus: "Thanks to Twitter/all tweeters for fantastic support over past 16 hours! Great victory for free speech."

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is production editor of The First Post. He has written for the Daily Mirror, Dazed & Confused and Sleaze Nation, and has contributed to books on music.